<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Turning 10 by JMount74</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27248242">Turning 10</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/JMount74/pseuds/JMount74'>JMount74</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [18]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Thunderbirds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anaphylaxis, Concussions, Gen, copious amounts of pranking</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:55:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,249</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27248242</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/JMount74/pseuds/JMount74</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a tradition of celebrating turning 10 years old in the Tracy household, and Gordon has a tradition all of his own to uphold.</p><p>Unfortunately, it doesn't usually go well for the prankster...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [18]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946881</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Turning 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Whumptober Prompt 25: I Think I'll Just Collapse Right Here: Disorientation, Blurred Vision, Ringing Ears</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was generally thought, by those who did not know them, that Gordon Tracy was a loud, obnoxious and rude little boy, with no thought to others.</p><p>His brothers knew him better. He was a loud little boy, but he had a heart of gold and would do anything for anyone.</p><p>Unfortunately, that often meant pranking them in some way to try to make ‘it’ better.</p><p>Jeff and Lucy had lost count of how many times he had tried to ‘cheer up’ someone by putting laxative in their drink, or itching powder in their shorts. Or, Jeff’s favourite, hair dye in the showerhead. He still hadn’t worked out how Gordon could even reach the showerhead. Needless to say, every cent that Gordon had was spent in the ‘joke’ section.</p><p>Gordon’s scheming brain was a thing of either beauty or fear. No-one was quite sure which.</p><p>Ten was a special year to the Tracy family – the first year of double digits!</p><p>For Scott’s tenth birthday Gordon had decided that his party needed livening up. All this talk of planes and flying was so boring. So the six-year-old decided to liven everyone up by setting off some fireworks that Jeff swore he had hidden in the locked shed that the kids couldn’t get into.</p><p>In turn, the fireworks did liven up the party. It ended up with eight fully clothed ten-year-olds in the pool, the tablecloth on which Scott’s presents were waiting catching fire and his ten-year-old brother in hospital with a concussion after falling off the chair he had been standing on and hitting his head.</p><p>Scott complained of disorientation for days afterwards. Gordon’s punishment was a month with no swimming and no money until he had replaced Scott’s presents. Gordon secretly thought that was a cheap punishment and had been more than happy to undergo this after he realised he hadn’t killed his oldest brother.</p><p>When John turned ten Jeff and Lucy had been clear to now seven-and-a-half-year-old Gordon that he would be in big trouble if he did anything to John. And in fairness, playing any pranks on John was simply not fun. John never reacted other than to roll his eyes. Plus, Gordon might be a fish, but John was an ‘odd duck’ the lady in the corner shop had said, and Gordon had not yet found anything worth pranking John over.</p><p>So John, in turn, may have felt quite safe from the family prankster – but John was also a practical boy who knew his brother better than his brother knew himself. It came as no surprise when John woke up on his birthday morning with two black eyes. What was a surprise was that Gordon not only sported two black eyes to match, but that he had a flourishing moustache as well.</p><p>Jeff and Lucy did not ask.</p><p>Virgil’s tenth birthday was somewhat very different. Their Mom had died the year before. Birthdays that year had been non-existent mostly – Scott had tried his best for each of them, but a 13-year-old should not be planning parties.</p><p>They all needed cheering up, so for Virgil’s tenth Gordon decided that he would stick with tried and tested methods. He put hair dye in the shower, knowing that as Virgil was the birthday boy he would have first use.</p><p>The screaming from the shower brought both Scott and Grandma running and Gordon hiding. After attempting to calm down a distraught Virgil, Grandma called for an ambulance and Scott assisted Virgil to get dressed.</p><p>That day Gordon found out that some people can be allergic to hair dye. Virgil was one of them. His face and hands were swollen, and by the time the ambulance had arrived he was struggling to breathe. John was left in charge while both Scott and Grandma went to the hospital. Virgil stayed in two days, and when he came out his eyes were still sore, and he complained of blurred vision for several weeks after.</p><p>Gordon didn’t put hair dye in the shower for another 15 years, when he stumbled across a hypoallergenic dye and managed to con Virgil into doing a patch test (don’t ask). The resultant neon pink hair was worth the wait. Well, Gordon thought it was.</p><p>No-one did anything special for his tenth birthday. Scott had cadets, John had a special space camp thingy and Virgil had a concert to prepare for. Gordon had felt so alone sitting down with just Alan and Grandma to a cake. Even his dad had not made it home from work.</p><p>The cake was nice enough and having seven-year-old Allie around was fun, but it wasn’t the same. Grandma offered to take him swimming as a special one-off visit, and both boys happily grabbed their trunks and got into the car. </p><p>That joy was short-lived. The lady on reception said that there was a birthday party in the pool and that they had closed it for the afternoon. Seeing Gordon’s forlorn look, Grandma asked if the lady would ask if Gordon could perhaps have a little swim since it was also his birthday. The lady smiled and picked the phone.</p><p>Gordon was delighted when not even five minutes later a lifeguard opened the gate and beckoned them through. Imagine his surprise then, when he entered and found the rest of his family and the whole of his class and his swim class all waiting for him there,</p><p>Best prank ever.</p><p>Alan’s tenth went off like all the others. Alan had been ignoring Gordon all morning. Ok, that was Gordon’s fault – he had decided that he should set up Allie’s day right from the start by throwing a bucket of cold water over him. Thirteen-year-old Gordon was not too worried. His partner in crime couldn’t stay mad at him forever, and indeed by the time mid-afternoon came the two were as thick as thieves again.<br/>

</p>
<p>That is, of course, when Gordon’s prank on Alan spectacularly misfired and resulted in both Scott and Virgil being kept overnight in the infirmary. The explosion he had planned for when Alan opened his present somehow managed to go off in Scott’s face as his older brother had picked it up to pass it over. The noise was so loud that it had cause both Scott (who had been right over it), and Virgil (who was beside Scott and had sensitive hearing anyway), to lose their hearing. It was a good job Alan had not been the recipient after all.</p><p>Both brothers complained of ringing in their ears – Scott for over a week and Virgil for nearly a month.</p><p>His Dad and Grandma had been furious, as had Virgil who missed out playing the piano at some school event as he couldn’t hear the notes properly. Gordon’s punishment was severe, and he promised never to mention it.</p><p> That was the year Scott left for Yale. It changed everything in the family dynamic, and Gordon found he had no time, and pretty soon no brothers left, to play any pranks.</p><p>The first day all five brothers were back together on their island Gordon made sure everyone – including Dad and Grandma – had different coloured glitter in their showerheads.</p><p>In paraded: A blue (Scott), a green (Virgil), an orange (John), a red (Alan), a silver (Dad) and a purple (Grandma). Gordon fell around laughing, and pretty much soon everyone was.</p><p>It was good to be a family again.</p><p>And no-one mentioned to Gordon that he had two black eyes and a twirly moustache.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>